A snippet of “The Sky Angels” saga

Chapter Three – Tenna’ ento lye omenta……..

As the black soot strangled the earth, nothing and nobody stood in its way, fire had ravaged even the parts that fire could not travel, corpses lay upon corpses as the earth groaned under the dead bleaching into the soil; and oh how the moon cried as its light tried to shine through the vail of blackened clouds and the north winds blew an icy blast across her face as she stood at the open door of her family seat since 1700 to the walled formal gardens. The wind calling to her; beckoning her to follow into the dark satanic clear night, away from the safety of the warm and welcoming if not eerie mansion that she knew as home. A home albeit alone save a familiar. Her family had long since departed along with the serving staff, leaving just a bare shell, the furniture covered in old white drapes as if shut up for the season; when Londinium beckoned. For the last few months she had been living out of her travel trunk, whilst she gathered her thoughts. Her parents had departed whilst she was at finishing school in Europe and she had not been allowed to return home for the funeral; and the family expressly forbade daguerreotype, post-mortem photographs allowing loved ones to remember their dead relatives so all she had where her memories and the heavy damask covered contents of the mansion, her legacy.

She allowed the wind to carry her into the gloom, as an icy chill fell around and about her. Wrapping the shawl around her tightly she was carried over the formal gardens and down to the lake, upon which a weak reflection of the moon floated, casting little light towards a fallen branch beckoning her to sit.

Alone she sat on the branch of the old tree, its branches bowing to the water that passed beneath it, the tips gracefully tickling the ripples. As she waited, her thoughts wandered, remembering how and why she had ended up looking overlooking the tidal lake as the darkness of night enveloped the day. What was it her father said in the past, something about wandering off, staying close to home, not going down to the lake. Well she’d done all three. She’d be in trouble when she got home, she felt like that child again and soon to be her ageing ceremony, the time when she was no longer a child but ready to serve her Lord or Lady, whichever she was to be assigned to. But she did not want to become of age, she as the youngest wanted to remain a child, forever the child, the laito, her nickname. Everyone in the village called her Laito, Laito this and Laito that and she hated it; hated it with a passion wondering if they even knew her real name. Quietly she slid off the branch into the cool lake, once more.

As she stayed beneath the surface allowing the cold water to envelop her body a silver moon crept out from behind the blackening clouds, parting the gloom and enlightening the valley floor below bathing it in a shimmering light enveloping the beauty that lay before. High on the hill in the shadow of the moon stood a lonely black figure, normally beautified in swathes of bright colour, but cursed by night, the colours turned to jet black allowing it to become a silhouette in the night’s sky, tall and proud, dark and foreboding. The silver moon cut a swathe of light upon the lake in the bottom of the garden; its clear crystal waters reflecting back a perfect image of the night sky. Even the stars were now visible upon that magical night, the night of Faelvrin. How Faelvrin even came to be in that area was a mystery but what was meant to be and was meant to pass is the Great Creator had written in the scrolls of history and confined to the annuls of time.

Bending down the beautiful pure white animal drank from the lake, casting a shadow upon the water unlike nothing before…pure, innocent and magical, the stars peering from behind the inky clouds as if bowing down to this, this beauty. Free and unbound, Faelvrin would know only freedom and ultimately companionship, but that is for another day; for now, Faelvrin raised her head and turned towards the mountains behind her, disappearing into the darkness.

As she surfaced back into the gloomy night sky, she forgot about the ageing ceremony so long ago; tonight she was re-born under the light of a silver moon and a noble unicorn’s gaze. She came from that Ranger stock, albeit not that she knew but tonight the Assassin was ready. The Assassin was born.